Last weekend, I had two major flops in the kitchen. Two different flops for the same recipe.

One batch of dough didn’t even make it onto the counter to be rolled out. That’s how bad it was. I barely got it mixed together before I knew it wouldn’t work, and it went straight into the trash.

The second go round of the dough looked more promising, so I tried a new method of making sweet rolls where you roll and cut them the night before, let them rest in the fridge overnight, and then have them rise in the morning before baking them.

I was ready.

The dough looked great. The filling smelled amazing. And they rolled up perfectly, which doesn’t always happen.

I took them out in the morning to get them to room temperature, put them in the oven with a pan of boiling water and let them sit for 30 minutes.

And…nothing happened. They looked exactly the same!

So I tried a new method. Since I had a load of (already) dry clothes in the dryer, I turned the dryer on for about 10 minutes to get it warm. Then I turned off the dryer and put the pan IN the oven on top of the warm clothes to see if they would rise.

An hour went by and they had barely moved.

I baked them anyway.

After our yogurt biscuits came out of the oven and we had finished breakfast, I decided to go ahead and bake the rolls to see how they would do.

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22 Responses to “The Orange Rolls That Weren’t.”

So sad that these didn’t turn out! They look perfect; so uniform (mine never look that way!). i do have a recipe for orange rolls on my blog–but it’s not whole wheat, or healthy in the least.
I love the dryer trick; I have been known to do that when my warm oven is otherwise occupied. Keep trying–I would love to see what you come up with!

Ugh. I hate when that happens. As a cook/baker it’s always hard to know when to walk away from a recipe and when to keep pressing on. I have one recipe for lower fat chocolate banana muffins that I’ve been tweaking and tweaking and it never quite works so finally I abandoned it. I’ve never made orange rolls but I will say I’ve had a lot of success with the following doughs. Maybe they could be adapted for orange rolls?http://pink-apron.com/recipes/caramel-apple-sticky-buns/ <–This is basically just a brioche dough, but it works like a charm. I will say it is very rich though so maybe it's too much with orange?

Neither are WW though. Were you following a recipe that was specific for whole wheat because I do always notice that things that are more whole wheat just don't rise as much. I did find a great product from King Arthur that helps with that (it's an additive you use to make the whole wheat dough rise better).

I always test my yeast before using it. Mix 1/4 cups of the warm liquid and 1 tsp sugar add yeast. After about 5 minutes it will bubble and foam and you’re good to go. Just be sure that you don’t kill it by adding liquid that is too hot for it. An instant read thermometer is the key there. I don’t rely on the milk on the forearm trick.

I would try it again, but you can add orange rind to any recipe (or however the orange flavor was added.